


4. Two Ghosts

by brokxnharry



Series: Teen Wolf Challenge (Harry Styles Album) [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Artist Derek, Break Up, Domestic Fluff, Future Fic, Hurt Stiles, Loss of Child, M/M, Married Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Songfic, Trying For A Baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 05:44:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13024488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokxnharry/pseuds/brokxnharry
Summary: They thought this baby would fix them, thought it would give them purpose again, remind them why they'd ever fallen in love.But it went away and when they had to give her up, they kind of just.. gave up. On everything.Until they kind of didn't.





	4. Two Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> The gif used isn't mine, so credit to owner.  
> Enjoy and let me know what you think!

His back was starting to ache, his shoulders hunched beneath a weight he didn’t think he'd ever shed. His legs were trembling to keep him from losing feeling in them too. The blood on his hands still hadn't dried, dissolving into the oil and tar and traces of the cream they used on him. He could still feel the tiny figure sinking into his palms. He didn't understand how it just wasn't there anymore. He didn't know how he'd ever let go.

He was aware of the blinking of the eyes beside him, how tears fell every time they closed, how some stayed behind, drowning them with sorrow and defeat. He was aware of the hands as bloody as his, shaking with an itch he'd never be able to fulfill. He was aware of the downwards curve to everything that was collapsing onto itself beside him and he didn't know how he was meant to let go of that too. He didn't know why it felt like he kind of already had.

" Stiles," He sighed, closed his own eyes around the blank, unseeing look in Stiles' eyes.

" Stiles, we need to shower, and – change. Your dad said we have to go down to the station and see where they are with the paperwork and – meet up with a lawyer, to figure out what to do. If there's anything we can do."

Nothing changed in Stiles' features, nothing gave. Derek couldn't remember the last time he  felt so.. far away from him. He didn't know what to do.

" There's nothing to do. She carried that baby and had her. And she wants to keep her. We can't take a baby away from her mother. That's just.. it."

The wrinkling around Stiles' tearful eyes squeezed at Derek's heart, and he started aching all over. They'd known each other for roughly two years before Derek could get himself to say the words out loud, and ask Stiles out on their first date. They'd dated for three years before he proposed, one stormy night when they were on a road trip back from a town nearby, after settling a feud with another pack. Stiles had been half asleep, giggling and chatting about nothing that mattered, but Derek had asked the question mid-laugh and everything had stopped, until he'd held the ring out for Stiles, and Stiles had taken it with a gasp that sounded like the very first breath after a lifetime of suffocation. They'd been married for a year before they started talking kids, and it'd taken them three more years to find the perfect surrogate mother. They'd come so close, finally, **_God, finally_** they'd come close to the family they'd wanted with one another, and then it was just, ripped right out of their hands, taking so much of them along with it.

" We can try again, or, find someone else. We can even go outside of Beacon Hills, Stiles, we can – "

He was desperate. Derek was desperate and run down and he could see the impending loss in the horizon, could see all the things he'd lost and all he was just about to lose and – he couldn't do any of it. None of it.

" We can't. I'm not doing this again. I'm not – I'm just done." Stiles shook his head, started fetching for his footing, something to ground him, take him away from Derek.

" I'm going to take a shower. You can use the guest room's bathroom if you want one too."

Stiles left before Derek could stop him. Derek doubted he would have been able to. He had this queasy feeling in his stomach, like he was coming down with something, or about to go through the kind of loss that would leave him nauseous and ill for the rest of his life. So he took a shower, wondered if he should maybe dress up for it. Stiles deserved to be set off properly. Derek had to look the part; of the man so tired of being so stupidly in love. Soon to be divorced. Desperate and devastated and carved right out.

Derek rubbed at his aching shoulder, still healing after the accident, as he put on Stiles' favorite pajamas, and crawled into bed. Tiredness was seeping through his bones, but he willed himself to remain awake, knowing he'd want to sleep through the goodbye closing in on them. He let his eyes fall shut though, because they were burning with exhaustion, itching with a need to escape. The blood had turned the water in the shower a diluted shade of red, turning muddy and filthy as the rest of his body started to clear. But he could still feel the imprint of the baby in his palms, carved into the lines he was born with. He wondered if anyone could read those for him; could make some kind of sense of them, tell him they'd lead somewhere other than the end.

It'd broken Stiles' heart. Derek's too. But Stiles had given this his all. He'd wanted to have a baby with Derek, without having to leave their home and their family back in Beacon Hills, so they'd gotten a house big enough, and he'd filled out all the forms required so that they'd be part of the adoption process. He'd attended all the interviews, answered all the questions, had patience for both of them when Derek started getting restless and hopeless. He'd met up with the mothers, lists and lists of mothers and babies and agencies. He'd been there for the early-on miscarriages and had paid for the required treatments. He'd even found Karen himself; the nineteen year-old single mum who'd wanted to travel the world and do things no mother could really do. And he'd been proud, relieved, because for the longest time it'd felt like him and Derek were drifting apart, and he'd foolishly thought that maybe adding someone between them would ease the tension away.

He'd taken Karen to every scan, reminded Derek of them when he'd almost forgotten. He'd introduced her to his father and to Scott and Kira and – everybody. He'd promised her a loving family that started and ended with him. And she'd been ecstatic to have found a couple that wanted it bad enough. And they did. Derek had never wanted anything more, since he'd wanted Stiles.

They prepared for everything, taking several changes for the baby, all the little things they'd need for the hospital, the rest of the money, and even the files of paperwork. They took everything and picked up Karen, taking her themselves to the hospital, telling everyone that the next time they'd be going home, there would be three of them. They went into that delivery room and held her hands even when it hurt, even when the screams almost sent Stiles into a panic attack, he stayed and so did Derek. But their baby was as stubborn as they always had been, taking far too long to come out, and when she did – God, their hearts broke with how much they'd loved her, how hardly they'd fallen in love with her.

Her mother did too, crying and crying and begging them to forgive her. She shook her head, silently told them that she couldn't do it, that she no longer wanted to. Stiles stood by, stunned into speechlessness, while Derek fought and yelled and threw all the fits he could, because how dare she make Stiles look like that? How dare she do that to him? How dare she take their baby away?

Stiles told Derek that he just wanted to go, that he didn't want any of this, he just wanted to leave, he wanted out. So Derek didn't bother to wash up, Stiles didn't either, both of them ripping the hospital gowns away, before walking silently back to their car. There was still only two of them. If anything, there was less of them now that they'd hurt so severely.

Stiles rested his head against the window and closed his eyes, his features fading further and further away from what he was feeling, drawing a complete blank. Derek didn't try to stir him, didn't have the time to, because a drunk driver slammed straight into his door, and the car started flipping and turning and didn't stop until it was well into the woods, with Stiles' door wrapped around a tree. Derek dislocated a shoulder and a knee, but when he came to, Stiles was still out, bleeding from somewhere around his head, and Derek couldn't for the life of him, hear past the buzzing in his ears, enough to seek out his heartbeat. But Stiles still was the sheriff's son, so ambulances and first respondents swarmed the place soon enough, getting them out and stabilizing them. And when the sheriff asked where the baby was, Stiles squeezed his eyes shut and pretended to still be unconscious.

Stiles refused to go back to that hospital, so they cleaned them up, drove them home, and let them be, even when they stopped really wanting to.

Derek felt the bed moving beneath him, but couldn't quite find the energy to peel his eyes opened, so he didn't. He let a head fall onto his thigh, a hand trace the length of his leg, from the knee down, soft air brush against his skin, sending waves of chills through him, but it was nothing too uncomfortable. Nothing he hadn't been missing terribly. He moved his fingers till they started brushing through hair, massaging the roots and tugging kindly.

" How is the head?" Derek whispered, afraid of breaking the delicate bubble surrounding them, not wanting to tear through the silence too viciously.

" Better. How is the arm?"

" Back to normal. Tired though."

Derek really was tired, but it had nothing to do with his healed injuries. It kind of broke his heart, how Stiles seemed to understand. To agree.

" Yeah. I am too."

" You should sleep. Get some rest."

" I slept too much the past few days, to prepare myself for the upcoming sleepless nights. But now," Stiles stopped, choked on something horrible. Derek moved his hand away from his hair, rested it against his arm and squeezed so hard, he felt the crack between his bones. Or maybe it was in Stiles' heart. He couldn't tell the breaking sounds apart.

" What are you – "

" What would you have done? If none of this had happened, if we never were together at all, what do you think you would have done, or, would be doing right now?" Derek startled at Stiles' willingness to converse but he found himself grateful for it. So he tried to think of a world where Peter had never bitten Scott. Or maybe he had, but him and Stiles had never been best friends. Or maybe they had been, but Derek had never come back to Beacon Hills. Or maybe he had, but he had never bitten Isaac or Erica or even Boyd. Or maybe –

" I don't know. It's just – we're completely different people now. It's hard to think of who we were back then, and who those people would have turned out to be."

" I think I would have studied Astrobiology."

" What?" Derek chuckled, not derogatorily or mockingly, mostly surprisingly.

" Yeah. Space is so interesting, like imagine studying meteors and planets and galaxies for a living? Also, hopefully finding out about aliens for sure. Maybe get involved with the Star Wars franchise, who knows."

Derek could see it. Could see Stiles doing so much.

" I didn't, hold you back, did I? Was this – "

" Stop that. I fell in love with you. I **_chose_** to stay here and be with you. We went through what we went through **_together_**. It wasn't on anyone." Stiles patted Derek's chest in something like a slap, shoving his irrational doubts to the side, dismissing the guilt that was never his.

" I think, maybe I would have done something Art related. That would have been nice. Or become some kind of teacher or coach, or – something."

" You would have been great at all of those things, oh my God." Derek chuckled again, his lips falling into a soft smile, as he leaned down, leaving a kiss between Stiles' hair, breathing him in – because he was going to miss him, more than he would ever be able to tell him, and none of this was fair but there was nothing else for him to do but release.

" Do you think we would have gone back to fighting? If, with the baby and –  if she'd been there, do you think we would have gone back to how we were after a while? All the yelling and screaming and withdrawing?" Derek sighed, suddenly tired again, the ringing of their cruel voices still beating against his skull, a kind of pounding he'd never be able to shake.

" I don't know, Stiles. Probably. We haven't been doing a great job at this whole healthy relationship thing, have we?"

" Not really, no. Maybe this was for the best then. Maybe we would have been shitty parents, and – "

" Stiles," Derek gasped, threatened, " Don't say that. You would be an incredible parent, I've always thought that. And I, I would have given it my all. Would have done anything for our baby. But.. I guess, it's the combination that didn't work anymore. We're too in love with one another and too angry at the world, to have any room for anything else. Or anyone."

" Yeah. Maybe you're right."

" Kind of a habit of mine, that."

" Yeah, okay, asshole." Stiles kindly patted the leg he rested against, before lifting himself off the bed. For a minute there, Derek was terrified, thinking this was it, he was going to leave him right then, but Stiles extended a hand, smiled reassuringly, and Derek followed, the way he'd done years and years ago, when Stiles came out of a man's workshop like he'd just come back from the dead. Derek had followed him home and then stayed outside until he'd started awakening, shedding the dark shadow of whatever he'd seen in there, forcing himself back into the routine of his life. Derek didn't stop following him then either.

Derek sat by the kitchen table, while Stiles dug through the fridge, trying to cook them something greasy and tasty and unforgettable. Like everything else about them was.

The fridge light casted a sparkle to Stiles' jaw, highlighting the sharp edge to it now that he'd grown into his features, into all his curves. Derek had his beauty marks memorized, spent nights upon nights tracing them, drawing them into galaxies and worlds and universes. He felt something boiling in his stomach, rumbling, wondered if it was just the hunger, but thought it was something else. Something like reintroduction. Re-falling. But never quite crashing yet. Maybe they had never nailed the landing.

Pulling away from the fridge, Stiles bumped his already injured head, groaning at the resonating sound of Derek's immediate laughter. He kind of started laughing too, always finding pride in bringing something so beautiful out of Derek and into the world. Then, Derek started reminiscing, telling him stories of the time Stiles had scored a goal during a match, only to end up slamming straight into the net and getting tangled into it for so long, that they had to call an emergency recess.

And that was how they spent the rest of the night, well into the morning, laughing over stories they'd told before. Stories they'd lived and people they'd loved and losses that'd been carved into their souls, but didn't hurt as much anymore. Kind of stung a little still.

At around 4 in the morning, Derek turned on the radio, found some Fleetwood Mac song playing and asked Stiles to dance. So they did, wondering how they'd ever fallen out of love at all, when there was still **_so much_** between them.

An hour or so later, they fell onto each other, into the couch, vibrating with laughter, glowing with a kind of love that was more than just that. More than just love. Stiles kissed Derek first. Derek didn't let him stop, leaned forward when Stiles pulled away, careful not to hurt the head, or push into any of the bruises scattered across Stiles' skin. And when Stiles started whispering about things like leaving and packing and distance, Derek shook his head, groaned into his mouth, because Derek knew. He knew about all the life Stiles had missed when he'd let himself fall for Derek, because Derek was Stiles' first in a lot of things. First kiss with a boy. First time losing his virginity. First road-trip. First marriage. He knew Stiles wanted meaningless, one night-stands just to say he had the experience of it. He wanted to travel and meet new people that didn't worry about Alphas and Kanimas and hunters. He wanted to go to college and look at stars for the rest of his life. He wanted to try all different pizza restaurants in Italy and determine that they were all his favorites. Or sky-dive by the mountains in Egypt. Or scuba-dive in Thailand and learn how to Surf in Australia. He wanted to live and he wanted it to not revolve around Derek, or anyone for that matter. He wanted to try to live for himself, just this once. And he'd promise all his coming lifetimes to Derek if he could. 

Some time around 9 in the morning, Derek stirred, not having realized he'd even fallen asleep, blindly moved his hands around, searching, seeking. But there was nothing there. The dishes were still in the sink, and the radio was still playing, Sam Smith now, a sad sounding love song that sent Derek flying, frantically looking around the house he knew was empty. It had to be; because there was no running water from the shower, no humming sounds, no scents of home and safety and freshly applied deodorant. There was no Stiles.

Derek just went to sleep and pretended he could dream this all away.

He couldn’t, because he got a phone call from the sheriff, telling him that Stiles left him a message, saying that he was going away for a while, on a road trip, and he was going to lose his phone, and pretty much all means of contact. The sheriff didn't ask why Stiles had left, didn't wonder what had happened, and Derek wondered if they'd been so **_obviously_** miserable.

Scott stayed with Derek for a week after, leaving his wife and children behind and just focusing on all the little signs of heartbreak that Derek tried so desperately to hide, to divert. Then Cora came and she broke right through him, leaving him feeling exposed and vulnerable and pathetic. So unashamedly, helplessly, pathetic.

She went out, and signed him up for Art classes, then college, and then life was moving away from Stiles and the life Derek had built around him, and more towards just – life. As it could have been all along.

Two years later, Derek had a small exhibition, with a few of his favorite pieces. It attracted quite the crowd and he was so happily busy meeting people and accepting praise, that it caught him off guard when he felt like he could burst into tears, finding a bottle of Stiles' favorite kind of wine - because Derek could never get drunk, another thing that Stiles always gloated about- with a paper attached to the bottom of it, that said _Your eyes are still so stupidly blue but now look at all the beauty they can see. So proud of you. Take care, Stiles._

No one ever told him they'd seen Stiles that night too. That he'd been physically there, looking the way he'd dreamed him to be, even after all this time.

A year after that, Derek was back home, visiting his friends, when Stiles called his father, and Derek was the one to pick up. Stiles hung up, panicked and shocked. But then he called back, apologized, and they started talking like old friends, like things had shifted back into place, and they were who they'd always been to each other. No longer ghosts of each other's pasts, but real people who'd gone separate ways and were circling back towards their very first cross-road. It was the most relieved Derek had ever been.

Three years later, Derek was standing in his sister's wedding, laughing until his laughter morphed into another's, and when he turned his head, Stiles was there, in Derek's favorite white shirt and Derek swore, he felt 19 again, so stubborn about being in love. But when Stiles felt his nearing presence, he stopped laughing, extending his hand and introducing himself.

" Hey there, I'm Stiles."

Derek's eyebrows rose in confusion, an awkward chuckle falling past his lips as he shook Stiles' hand.

" Derek."

" Derek, huh? Sounds familiar. Tell me, Derek, what do you think about sleeping with socks on? Because this is a real deal-breaker for me."

Once Derek remembered Stiles whining about having cold feet all the time, he threw his head backwards with laughter. And Stiles laughed too, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, layers of dust falling away inside him, making him feel brand new, despite how familiar everything about this still was.

He figured, he could maybe manage falling in love with Derek, once or twice over.

He could probably manage falling in love with Derek however many times it took. And then some.  


End file.
